Monday, January 20, 2014

Some January reading

Here are a few articles I've found interesting over the
last few weeks. Two trends: writers and activists are getting
increasingly disturbed by the increasingly bad scenarios from climate change
science, none of which makes its way into mainstream media coverage.
However, there are still many useful things that can be done to buffer
impacts, control damage and inspire hope.

In his reply, Albert Bates came up with a grid on which he placed
various writers and their viewpoints, with the vertical axis measuring optimism
and pessimism about the future, and the horizontal axis tracking peaceful or
non-peaceful transformation. The debate about which messages can be
effective, and whose predictions will be most accurate continue...but this
discussion is not one that will be relevant or useful for the vast majority of
New Yorkers, even those concerned about sustainability and resilience.
What to tell those folks is a whole 'nother question, which I'm grappling
with through the film screenings and facilitated discussion events I'm setting
up in various locations.

Somepost-Christmas satirefrom John Michael Greer. Conservative
republicans are fond of citing the Bible, but there really isn't that much
Biblical support for cutting benefits to the poor, making as much money as you
can, etc. Greer suggests they may be more aligned with an obscure
religion that enthusiastically endorses sociopathic greed: Satanism.

Eightgraphs onclimate and energy issues from 2013: global temps
going way up, carbon dioxide levels passes 400 PPM for first time; record
number of climate deniers in Congress; arctic ice and the price of solar power
both decline; renewable power keeps growing...yada yada.

A review ofrecent climate sciencecontains some increasingly dire near-term scenarios.One degree C is equal to
1.8 degrees F, and we're already .85 C above the average pre-industrial
planetary temperature. New reports project higher temperatures
sooner than those from just a few years ago - such asa 3.5 to 4C (6.3 - 7.2F) rise by
mid-century or sooner. IPCC reports are very conservative and don't
include feedback loops that could accelerate warming, such as a release of
methane as the floor of the Arctic Ocean warms up or the Siberian permafrost
melts.

7 things everyone knows
about energy that just ain't so. Mark Twain once said,
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you
know for sure that just ain't so." And, there are many, many things that
the public and policymakers know for sure about energy that just ain't
so. Kurt Cobb goes througha long listof fossil fuel industry deceptionspicked up by a gullible media.

But you know, we might get lucky, so keep struggling! "The Arc of Justice and the Long Run: Hope,
History and Unpredictability." This article from Rebecca Solnit makes the case for hope. "The past explodes from time to time, and
many events that once seemed to have achieved nothing turn out to do their work
slowly. Much of what has been most beautifully transformative in recent years
has also been branded a failure by people who want instant results."

There are ways to put the carbon back in the ground!A new book,Grass, Soil,Hope: a Journey through Carbon Country,
offers scientifically backed hope that greenhouse gases can be removed from the
atmosphere on a massive scale by increasing the carbon content of soil.
Practices include:no-till farming, climate-friendly livestock practices,
restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, fixing creeks, growing grass, and
producing local food.

More
hope, if we figure out new ways to run the economy.Stopping
climate change requires that we make drastic reductions in our fossil fuel use,
and move from the illusion of unlimited growth to a steady state economy.TheProsperous
Way Downwebsite offers guidelines for how we can
reorganize communities for energy descent, to fit with the natural processes of
land and water that sustain us. It'ssummarized here.

Okay, the entire corporate-commercial-industrial complex is
kind of opposed to this, so it's not like it will be easy. But most of
the writers and activists in this space believe it's just a question of time
before the economy - artificially levitating with galactic quantities of
made-up money through quantitative easing - is bound to crash. The more
that locally focused businesses and commercial systems can be set up in advance
of that, the better off we'll be.